I Can Feel It
by dolly.the.sheep
Summary: we know what the Doctor is thinking when Rose asks who he is, but we never know what Rose is thinking. i rewatched 'Rose' again today and just had to write this. Nine and Rose.


_I tidied my bedroom today and found the video that I had recorded 'Rose' on last year. I watched it again today, for the first time in months, and fell in love with it all over again. And even though I know Christopher Eccleston will never again be the Doctor, I know that a bit of Nine will always be with Rose ... especially after she asks who he really is._

* * *

"Seriously, though, Doctor … who are you?" 

The Doctor turned around to face her, and she was surprised at the look on his face. It was the first time he had shown her some real emotion, something that made him look … well, human. That thought in itself was stupid, because why wouldn't he be human? Of course he was human. There was nothing else he could have been. Yet Rose knew there was something about this man – something that wasn't quite right. He looked normal, besides the satellite ears and Pinocchio nose, and he sounded normal, apart from that stupid Northern accent of his … but there was just something about him that felt too rehearsed – like he knew how humans were supposed to act, but hadn't quite rehearsed it enough. He was too jokey, too manic, too … well, odd.

He smiled at her.

He smiled at her and she realised that there was something in him that was human after all. He thought for a moment, considering, wondering what to tell her. Rose had to bite back a smirk. _How difficult is it to tell someone your name? Hello, my name is Rose Tyler. What's yours? Easy. Engage brain, open mouth, flex tongue, tighten vocal chords. _

_**This is a recorded message. The person you are contacting is unavailable. Please try again later.**_

"D'you know like what we were saying," he said eventually, "about the Earth revolving?" He chuckled slightly. Rose frowned. He wasn't making sense. How did this explain who he was? "It's like when you're a kid," he continued, sauntering slowly over to her, "the first time they tell you that the world is turning, and you just can't believe it cause everything looks like it's standing still." He looked her in the eye and spoke to her as if he was divulging classified information – he was telling her his deepest, darkest secret and she was the first person he'd told.

"I can feel it."

Rose couldn't move. She wanted to take a step back, distance herself from the Doctor … but she couldn't. She felt like she was rooted to the spot, hypnotised by the almost palpable aura of power he was giving out. She could feel it too. She could feel the power he had, and even though she didn't know what it meant, it scared her. It scared her to death.

"The turn of the Earth."

She began to feel giddy, heady from the feeling he was giving off. As if he could read her mind – and at this point she wasn't quite so certain that he couldn't – he grabbed her hand and held it, tightly. He squeezed her hand and stared at the floor, eyes burning, blazing with power and a ferocity that both terrified and intrigued Rose. She understood and yet she didn't. All her life she had known that the Earth went around the Sun, but she had never understood it. She had never even tried to grasp the enormity of the situation.

_**Normal service will resume shortly.**_

Totally without warning, Rose's memory dug up a day in her past – a physics lesson at school, in year nine. Her teacher had tried to explain the forces to them, and when he had seen the bored faces of twenty 14-year-olds staring back at him, he had physicalised the experiment.

A bucket.

A length of string.

Some water.

And Rose had stared, stared in awe and astonishment at the water that didn't fall out of the bucket when it was upside down. She had marvelled at the invisible forces that had kept the water there while the teacher spun the bucket with the piece of string, which eventually broke and showered the entire class, who by that time were past caring.

The force was invisible.

Its effects were not.

Rose understood that now.

"The ground beneath our feet is spinning at a thousand miles an hour, the entire planet is hurtling round the sun at sixty-seven thousand miles an hour. We're falling through space, you and me, clinging to the skin of this tiny little world, and if we let go …"

_If you let me go, I'll fly off into the sky and I'll never come back. I'll get pulled away by something I can't see and I won't be able to stop it. The world will keep turning and I won't be able to keep up with it. Keep hold of my hand, Doctor. Hold my hand, hold it always, keep me with you. Because if you let go, I'll be floating through space on my own. I can't be on my own, Doctor. I can't be on my own any more._

_I can't be on my own …_

He let go.

_**Normal service had now been restored. We apologise for the disturbance.**_

"That's who I am."

But Rose couldn't. Rose couldn't let go.

"Now forget me, Rose Tyler."

_I can't. _

"Go home."

_I won't._

_**Please try again later.**_

_**Please try again later.**_

_**Please try again later …**_


End file.
